UNKNOWN MASTER, altarpiece painter
(15th century)

Lamentation of Christ

1450-60
Tempera on wood, 107 x 81,5 cm
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

The painting comes from Turdossin.

There is a wealth of iconographic detail in this work- originally the central panel of a triptych - representing as it does, is one scene, many characters from the story of the Passion. On the right, the three Marys with jars of ointment, though, according to the Bible it was to the sepulchre that they went on the morning of Easter Sunday; on the left, Joseph of Arimathia and Nicodemus, who took Christ's body from the cross on Friday, the day of the Crucifixion. Together they form a semicircle round the Virgin, grieving as she supports the dead body of her Son in her lap. The Pietá constitutes the central motif in the composition. The elongated figure of Christ, diagonally placed in the composition, reminds us of the Pietá of Avignon. Grief is conveyed in the naive simplicity of the style.

The figures are related in type to those on Polish panels, especially the figure of John the Evangelist who rests his head on one hand, for the same gesture can be seen in the Lamentations from Czarny Potok and Žywiec, and in the figure of a girl mourning the death of St. Emeric on the altar from Mateóc. In the middle of the fifteenth century Polish painting drew its inspiration from the works of the outstanding Master of Lamentation, so named after his painting from Chomranice, which in turn shows the direct influence of a famous Flemish painter, the Master of Flémalle. Although the painter of the Pietá from Turdossin must have seen examples of Polish art - as shown, for examples, by the silver background in his pictures - it is apparent from the centrally focussed composition as well as the style that he was by no means dominated by them. The characteristic features of his painting are the delicate tracing of the faces, eyebrows and the outlines of the body of Christ, also the sharp folds of the drapery and the rhythmic alternation of violet, green and red.


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